Minivan of the Revolution
Confessions of a Working Class Bookseller
Who’s Driving This Thing? And Where Are We Going?
You’ve landed on the nominally non-commercial (but who’s stopping you?) blog of Lorne Bair, proprietor of Lorne Bair Rare Books, a rare bookselling concern – yes, “concern” is the right word, always – in Winchester, Virginia USA. Lorne Bair Rare Books specializes in buying and selling the history, art, and literature of American radical history and social movements. I talk about that stuff here, and I don’t shy away from the inherent disconnect between what I do – that is, buy and sell, hopefully for a profit – and what I do it to, that is, stuff that was often created in a spirit of direct antipathy to the concept of “profit.”
But I also talk about other stuff – some of it relating to the broader trade in old books; some of it just about me and my friends, of which there are many (some are human); some about the strange ways printed matter exists and behaves in the world, a spectacle to which I’ve had a front-row seat for more than thirty years now.
If you want to see the items Lorne Bair Rare Books has for sale, I’ve provided a single commercial link right up there – it will take you straight to our website, where you’ll find us to be shameless pitch-men and -women for our own products. But here at MVOTR, all I’m pitching most of the time is whatever fits.
Recent Posts
New Posts Weekly :: Stay Tuned
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The Exploding Hat Fallacy. Part Three
A book description must begin from the examination of the book as a physical object, occupying a specific location in time and…
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Mile Marker 8: 2001
September 11th, 2001, 9:00 a.m. I’m in a veterinary office in Winchester, Virginia. In two months to the day I’ll be forty…
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The Exploding Hat Fallacy, Part Two
Unlike A.I., booksellers loathe misstatements of fact. Because unlike A.I., booksellers are capable of feeling shame. But before moving on, I think…
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Masterpieces of the Library Company of Philadelphia
A colleague this morning shared with me this New York Times article on the Library Company’s acquisition of Dr. Charles Rosenberg’s great…
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The Exploding Hat Fallacy: Part One (of a Series)
A few on-line rare book businesses have sprung up in the past year or two that are clearly using A.I. to generate…
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Mile Marker Zero: 1986
This journey starts in 1986. That year, I quit college and moved to New Orleans. I’d gone in search of Lee Ann,…
Friends and Fellow Travellers
HÉLÈNE GOLAY – 8vo MEANS EIGHT VOLUMES – Droll, witty, and incisive observations on life in the book trade. Full disclosure: Hélène worked for me as a cataloguer for six years, until I made the very stupid tactical blunder of introducing her to her future husband, who also happened to own a book business. This in no way influences my assessment of her as one of the great geniuses of our time.
SCOTT BROWN – DISPATCHES FROM THE RARE BOOK TRADE – One of my favorite observers of the business of rare books. Scott brings an analytical sensibility to his writing, and manages (unlike me) to make the book trade seem intelligible, or at least less shambolic. My multi-part essay “The Exploding Hat Fallacy” was inspired by (and is in a sense a reaction to) his interesting experiments with A.I.
GREG GIBSON – BOOKMAN’S LOG – The American rare book trade’s reigning expert in books on nautical and maritime subjects is also a critically-acclaimed memoirist and novelist. His blog posts, as one might expect, are sensitively written, occasionally salty, and always worth reading.
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